Claire giggled and kissed him back. “Please. It won’t be long before I look like I swallowed a basketball. There’s nothing intimidating about that.”
Mikhail placed his palm over her belly, his fingers splayed wide. “You’re lovely,” he murmured close to her ear. “And the most formidable vampire I’ve ever encountered.”
She nuzzled his throat and the scrape of her tiny fangs against his flesh sent a thrill through Mikhail’s veins. “I don’t know about formidable.” Her tongue flicked out, bathing him in wet heat. “But I bet I could bring at least one vampire to his knees.”
A rumble of pure lust vibrated in his chest. She could indeed. “Vanessa won’t be up for at least another hour. Let me take you to bed.” His hand plunged under her shirt to explore her bare skin. “We’ll make pancakes together afterward.”
Claire stiffened in his embrace but didn’t pull away. “Jenner isn’t back yet.” Her concern warmed Mikhail’s heart. That she would be a benevolent queen he had no doubt. “I’m worried about him. The transition’s been hard on him.”
Mikhail shared in her worry. It was true that the transition could be difficult for some and perhaps he had not done his due diligence in educating Jenner in what he could expect in his vampiric existence. Needs, hungers, passions intensified. For some, they became harder to suppress, to satisfy.
And whereas control could be mastered in a short period of time, Jenner seemed to always be on the brink of his. The male had begun to seek out fights; he searched the city for slayers to kill. His need for blood was unlike anything Mikhail had ever seen, and he suspected that Jenner bedded an excess of females on a nightly basis. But his loyalty was unflagging. His focus laser precise when Mikhail needed it to be. He could find no fault in Jenner save the tenuous hold on his control. Obsessions of any kind were dangerous and more so for vampires due to the intensity of their emotions. Mikhail could only hope that a female tethered Jenner soon. If not, Mikhail worried that Jenner’s appetites might overwhelm him. And a vampire with no control was a vampire who would meet a swift and violent death.
“He’ll be back by sunrise.” The reassurance felt hollow as Mikhail spoke the words to his mate. “In the meantime, let me take you to bed. I have need of your skin on mine before the sun rises.”
Claire sighed against his throat and he felt her smile. “I can’t think of a better way to spend the remainder of the night.”
Neither could Mikhail.
CHAPTER
13
“Naya!”
Ronan gave her a gentle shake, but she was down for the count. An icy chill clung to her skin and her warm complexion had gone ashen. Obviously in the grips of something he didn’t understand, Naya had taken the brunt of that evil demon’s magic and he had no idea how long she’d be out. Jesus, he had no idea how to help her. The sun would be up in less than a half hour and he needed to get them the hell out of there and somewhere safe.
The question was, where in the hell was safe?
Her house was a good thirty minutes away and he couldn’t risk being caught unprotected. Gods, he felt so helpless! Had Naya been a vampire, she could have drawn on his power—on Mikhail’s and Claire’s—to fortify her. Ronan could have fed her from his vein to help her regain her strength. Not knowing what she needed was a dagger to his chest.
A tingle of sensation crawled over his skin with the oncoming dawn. At the edge of the harbor, he caught sight of a stack of metal shipping containers. With her body clutched tight to his chest, Ronan raced along the beach to where they’d first laid eyes on the creature that had tried to kill them. Shreds of curled metal littered the ground, containers torn nearly in half. The odds of finding safe harbor inside one of the containers weren’t good considering someone was bound to notice the destruction. Ronan had run out of time and options, however. It was either this or burn to a crisp.
In a matter of minutes Ronan would fall victim to the daytime sleep that would render him virtually unconscious. He took off at a sprint to the far end of the harbor, negotiating hunks of twisted steel that littered the pier. Ronan wound a path to the far back through the rows of containers and chose a container at the top of a stack. Surely any investigation into the vandalized containers would be focused on the ground level.
Naya hung limp in Ronan’s arms as he leapt to the top of the stack. He set her down as though she were made of finely spun sugar before dangling himself over the edge. He tugged on the lock secured to the double doors and it gave way with a groan of metal. Once he managed to pull the doors wide, he flipped himself over the edge of the container and landed on his feet inside.